


Death-Life (WiP)

by abi z (azephirin), azephirin



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Episode: s05e22 The Gift, Friendship, M/M, Sexual Identity, Unfinished and Discontinued, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/abi%20z, https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel's crazy, Fred's stuck in Baton Rouge, and Wesley's confused. Very, very confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death-Life (WiP)

**Author's Note:**

> To the extent that this went anywhere, it became "It Must Be Hers." I've always liked the Gunn/Wesley (OTP!) interaction, though, even if it'll never be finished. NB: This was written before the show revealed where Fred was from, so that's why I've got her in Louisiana and not Texas.

It was the sort of thing Angel normally would have done: settle the girl in, give Cordelia some money to help her buy clothes, call the police and her parents, and fend off the reporters when the missing girl, assumed dead, surfaced quite unexpectedly and apparently unharmed.

But Wesley was the boss now--or Gunn, depending on who decided to be alpha wolf that day, or Cordelia, depending on how inept the other two were being--or at least it was clear that Angel was most certainly not. He grieved for Buffy, and Wesley (who grieved for the idea of Buffy, if not for the actual Sommers daughter herself) did what had to be done. It didn't even feel strange anymore; it was just business as usual.

Fred insisted that she didn't know what had happened to her; indeed, she told the police, she didn't remember any of the past five years. She had simply appeared one afternoon in front of the hotel and the good people inside had called the police. The police questioned all of them, but got nothing, and Fred's parents came for her.

Fred's parents lived outside of Baton Rouge, and they had both sobbed unabashedly when the precinct chief had called them. They didn't have much money--she'd been a scholarship student, courtesy of the Society of Women Engineers--but UCLA kicked in from some obscure discretionary fund, and they came out on the next flight to fetch their long-lost daughter. Wesley met them at the airport and drove them back to the hotel, where Cordelia presented them with Fred, who stared at her father and mother for a horrifying befuddled moment before rushing into their arms.

She went back to Baton Rouge with them the next day. Wesley bought her two of Steven Hawking's books, as well as a book on linguistics he thought would be helpful given her clear talent in languages. Cordelia packed tacos and enchiladas in a soft-sided cooler, and Fred went upstairs to say goodbye to Angel. She came back down quickly.

"How is he?" Cordelia asked.

Fred shook her head. "Not... not good. I'm, um, I don't think he really knew who I was."

"I'm sure he did," Wesley said.

"I don't think he knows who any of us are right now," Gunn said, which was closer to the truth.

Fred nodded sadly.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The hotel was too big for the five of them: Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, Wesley, and the ghost of Buffy. Angel spent most of every day asleep--or at least with his door closed, ignoring anyone who knocked--and all of every night, from sunset to sunrise, away. He wasn't fighting or hunting--he always returned in the same condition he left, his clothes as neat or as mussed as they had been hours before--and neither the Host nor any other bar owners reported seeing him. Wesley wondered if Angel were walking, or sitting, or going to prostitutes, or what. He didn't ask. He took the cases, did the research and the fighting, collected the money, and fell back on the old British habit of deny, deny, deny.

He got a letter from Fred, posted the day she'd returned to Louisiana. Her handwriting was shaky; she was five years out of practice. It was weird being home: if she'd forgotten a lot about L.A., she'd forgotten twice that about her hometown. Her parents were treating her like she might break, but she suspected that would wear off. Thank you for the books--she'd read half of the linguistics one one the plane, but then her mother had started crying again and it was sort of rude to read while her mother was bawling. She hoped Angel was alright; she'd write to him, too, and to Cordelia, to thank her for the tacos. She wasn't sure, but she didn't think the ones in Louisiana were as good. Oh, and the book had given her an idea: what did he think of this phrase in the priests' language, relative to a particular theory of physics?

Wesley wrote back the next day. He hadn't written a proper letter in years; his last had been a missive to the Watcher's Council. He updated Fred on Angel--not that there was much to update--and told her about an audition that Cordelia had coming up. And then he delved into the linguistics: her mind really was extraordinary, and while she wasn't at his level, it had still been an age since he'd had someone to bounce things like this off of.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Cordelia's audition--for a true part, with lines, in a real TV show--went well, and she blazed into the office three days later: "I got it!" Wesley swooped her up in a hug that surprised him as much as it did her, and she squealed and squealed. They found Gunn, and then they found Caritas, and they celebrated with a night of drinking that was unparallelled in Wesley's life.

Some hours later, unsteadily, they walked Cordy back to her apartment, where Ghost Dennis mercifully opened the door for them and arranged a blanket on Cordelia after Gunn deposited her none too gracefully onto her bed. Wesley knew he was drunk, because he leaned down and kissed her temple before they left.

Outside, Wesley very nearly walked into the side of the building, but wound up walking into Gunn instead, and once Gunn had recovered his balance, he thunked an arm around Wesley's shoulders and they lurched back in the direction of Wesley's apartment, just a few blocks past the hotel. "You kissing Cordy for some reason I don't know about?"

"I've kissed Cordelia before," Wesley said, very nearly boastfully.

"Before puberty or after?"

"After. Well after, I'll have you know. But, yes, a long time ago. And mistakenly, really."

"Uh-huh," Gunn said, and Wesley wasn't sure if this were supposed to signify closure or disbelief. He did know that Gunn was a warm solid weight holding him up, and his own body was also a warm, somewhat less solid weight, and he wondered if it felt the same to Gunn.

"The sun is about to come up," Wesley said.

"Maybe we'll run into Angel."

"Good Lord, I hope not."

"Why? Because you're drunk and got your arm around a man?"

"If that were shameful to me, I'd have killed myself long ago."

A raise of Gunn's sleek left eyebrow. "Common habit?"

"Common enough."

"Well, I'll be damned," Gunn said, but he didn't move his arm.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next day's mail brought three letters from Fred: one to Angel in a red envelope that looked like a greeting card, one to Cordelia in a small and fine white envelope with Fred's initials embossed onto it, and a third, thick and stuffed into a letter-sized envelope, for Wesley. Cordy riffled through them and handed Wesley his. "She must have lot to say to you."

Wesley smiled. "I suspect it's about physics. It tends to take up a good deal of room."

It was about physics--at least the first six pages--and Wesley noted that her handwriting was looking stronger.

> Things are going alright, I guess. My mom made me pancakes this morning and they tasted so good. I forgot that I liked them as much as I like tacos.
> 
> My parents are acting really weird, though. They keep trying to get me to tell them where I was, and I know if I tell them, they'll just think I'm crazy. So I'm still saying I don't remember anything until I come up with something better. And they want to go everywhere with me. Like my friend Matt called--he was my first boyfriend, and he was a nerd like me, and he's really the only friend I've got in Baton Rouge--and I really wanted to see him, and they wanted to go with me. I just wanted to go over to his house, and they made this big deal about how they were going to go, too. So we went, and Matt and I had to lock ourselves in the basement just so we could talk without my parents practically taking notes.
> 
> How did Cordelia's audition go? It sounded like a good part. She's so pretty and smart that she should get any part she wants. How is Angel? I sent him a card. It's kind of cheesy but I couldn't find anything better: greeting cards seem to have gotten worse in five years.
> 
> How are you? I'm reading _A Brief History of Time_ right now. Hawking is really amazing. I'll write you more about it when I finish it.

 

He wrote back right then--there wasn't really anything else that required doing, he decided. He wrote a thoughtful critique of her theory, mentioned a book he thought she should read if she could find it (and if not, he probably could, and send it to her), and updated her on Cordelia's audition in case Cordy couldn't quite get it together to put pen to paper. And then he wondered what to say about the rest: _Angel seems to be very gracefully losing it_?_ I got intoxicated last night and flirted with a very male, very heterosexual colleague of mine_? But instead he wrote about her parents, and how they would probably calm down after they'd had a few weeks to realize that she wasn't going to disappear again.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He waited up one night for Angel. He brewed tea and sat in the foyer of the hotel, half-reading the _Yurdak Book of Death-Life_ and keeping his eye on the door. The sun was very nearly up--he could read without a light on--when the door opened and in came Angel.

"Have some tea," Wesley said.

"I'm going to bed."

"Please. I'd like to talk to you. Have some tea, or some coffee if you'd prefer. Sit down."

"What do you want, Wesley?" Angel didn't sit, but he paused.

"I'm worried for you, Angel."

"Why?"

"I know-- I know that this loss has hit you hard, and will continue to do so. But frankly your disappearances have us all concerned."

"I'm not doing anything you need to know about," Angel said, and stalked upstairs.

Not so long ago, Wesley might have followed. Today he didn't.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He only managed to get through another couple of pages before the door opened again, this time thrown open by a man who liked to announce his presence. "Hey, big dawg," Gunn said, and went back to the kitchen. Returning with a cup and saucer from the hotel's old china service, he helped himself to the tea Wesley had made and relaxed into the other chair.

"I never took you for a drinker of darjeeling," Wesley said.

"With Angel pulling his phantom of the L.A. opera act, nobody buying coffee for this joint." Gunn stirred a healthy helping of sugar into his tea. "Take my caffeine where I can get it."

"What are you doing up, anyway?"

Gunn flashed him a brilliant smile and propped his chair back, slinging his feet up on top of the desk. "Stirring up trouble."

"As though that's some sort of change."

"So what's your take on our ex-boss, Wes?"

"I spoke with him this morning. He came in shortly before you did."

"And?"

"And we exchanged about five sentences. I told him I was concerned. It didn't seem to make much of an impression."

"I hope that blonde didn't throw his sanity off that tower with her. We got enough wrong in this town without a grief-crazed vampire running around it." Gunn took another drink of tea. "Got any ideas on what to do about it?"

"I was hoping I would ignore it, and at some point he'll cease walking the streets all night."

"The walking ain't the trouble. I've been following him."

Wesley closed the Yurdak treatise. "And?"

"He's stalking our favorite bunch of lawbook-beaters. Took down a couple of them. No," Gunn said in response to Wesley's unasked question, "no one we know. I followed him last night, which is why I'm here now."

"What do you suggest we do?"

"I was hoping you'd have an idea. But I do know that ignoring it like we did that other blonde piece isn't gonna take us far."

Wesley sighed and poured more tea. "Angel and blondes," he said. "It's epidemic."

"You think maybe we just introduce him to some nice redheads? Maybe throw in a brunette?"

"We have a brunette, and she doesn't seem any more effectual than we are."

"And the redhead that came through was all about you."

"Though not for very long."

"I don't remember saying nothing about women having sense. Though I guess that ain't a sex-linked trait, given that Angel's about to lose it and he male as can be, far as I know."

"I don't have empirical evidence, but I take that to be the case."

Gunn flashed him another grin, and the two of them sat in thought and took a few more sips of tea. "You think it would help to bring down one of the Sunnydale crew?" Gunn asked.

"No. Their relations with Angel are strained at best. He went evil several years ago and nearly killed several of them."

"Man, sucks when that happens. And I'm guessing there's no twelve-step program he could join. 'Hi, my name is Angel; I got a soul and a thing for crazy blond chicks.'"

"'Hello, my name is Angel, and I'm a soul man.'"

"Wesley, I had something to throw other than tea, I'd be throwing it at you now."


End file.
